Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LORD CORNWALLIS TO SIR HENRY CLINTON, FROM YORK, VIRGINIA, by PHILIP FRENEAU


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LORD CORNWALLIS TO SIR HENRY CLINTON, FROM YORK, VIRGINIA, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: From clouds of smoke, and flames that round me glow
Last Line: Nor leaves one triumph, even to hope for, more.
Subject(s): American Revolution; Clinton, Sir Henry (1738-1795); Cornwallis, Charles (1738-1805)


FROM clouds of smoke, and flames that round me glow,
To you, dear Clinton, I disclose my woe.
Here cannons flash, bombs glance, and bullets fly;
Not ARNOLD'S self endures such misery.
Was I foredoomed in tortures to expire,
Hurled to perdition in a blaze of fire?
With these blue flames can mortal man contend --
What arms can aid me, or what walls defend?
Even to these gates last night a phantom strode,
And hailed me trembling to his dark abode:
Aghast I stood, struck motionless and dumb,
Seized with the horrors of the world to come.

Were but my power as mighty as my rage,
Far different battles would Cornwallis wage,
Beneath his sword yon' threat'ning hosts should groan,
The earth should quake with thunders all his own.
O crocodile! had I thy flinty hide,
Swords to defy, and glance the balls aside,
By my own prowess would I rout the foe,
With my own javelin would I work their woe --
But fates averse, by heaven's supreme decree,
Nile's serpent formed more excellent than me.

Has heaven, in secret, for some crime decreed
That I should suffer, and my soldiers bleed?
Or is it by the jealous skies concealed,
That I must bend, and they ignobly yield?
Ah! no -- the thought o'erwhelms my soul with grief,
Come, bold sir Harry, come to my relief;
Come, thou brave man, whom rebels Tombstone call,
But Britons, Graves -- come Digby, devil, and all;
Come, princely WILLIAM, with thy potent aid,
Can George's blood by Frenchmen be dismayed?
From a king's uncle once Scotch rebels run,
And shall not these be routed by a son?
Come with your ships to this disast'rous shore,
Come -- or I sink -- and sink to rise no more.
By every motive that can sway the brave
Haste, and my feeble, fainting army save;
Come, and lost empire o'er the deep regain,
Chastise these upstarts that usurp the main:
I see their first rates to the charge advance,
I see lost Iris wear the flags of France;
There a strict rule the wakeful Frenchman keeps,
There, on no bed of down, lord Rawdon sleeps!

Tired with long acting on this bloody stage,
Sick of the follies of a wrangling age,
Come with your fleet, and help me to retire
To Britain's coast, the land of my desire --
For, me the foe their certain captive deem,
And every trifler takes me for his theme --
Long, much too long, in this hard service tryed,
Bespattered still, bedeviled, and belyed;
With the first chance that favouring fortune sends
I'll fly, converted, from this land of fiends,
Convinced, for me, she has no gems in store,
Nor leaves one triumph, even to hope for, more.






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